Transportation items queued up for Congress

Congress returned Monday for a brief two-week work session before the election season truly hits the homestretch. Good thing the transportation to-do list is far shorter than it was when the House and Senate got started in January.

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With new laws for surface transportation and aviation policy in the books, the only true deadline that must be cleared is an extension of funding for the Department of Transportation. The House has passed its transportation appropriations bills; the Senate has not.

But that will be neutralized by the six-month continuing resolution that Speaker John Boehner, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and the White House agreed on in late July to avoid a fight over a government shutdown in the shadow of the November elections. That CR still must be passed in both chambers before Oct. 1 to avoid DOT and other departmental funding running dry.

There has been progress on other transportation issues. On the Senate side, the Commerce Committee held a markup before the August recess that advanced two key initiatives: a bill that would exempt U.S. airlines from a fee-based emissions scheme the European Union plans to levy and the nomination of Michael Huerta for administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration.

Both, however, appear to be stymied in the near-term. The EU Emissions Trading Scheme legislation is still being held, a Senate aide confirmed, although the lawmaker who is slowing the bill has not gone public. Some in the aviation industry had suspected Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) was behind the hold, but his office denied the allegation. Another possibility floated has been Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), whose office has declined to comment to POLITICO.

Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) had concerns about the bill but were able to compromise with sponsoring Sens. John Thune (R-S.D.) and Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), and the legislation easily cleared the committee.

The bipartisan bill writers are clearly frustrated and had even hoped to get the item passed by unanimous consent before the August recess. They wrote a “Dear Colleague” letter last week to other senators asking for co-sponsors and quick action, although the hold on the bill was not addressed.

“The EU’s scheme goes into full effect in early 2013. Doing nothing is not an option,” Thune and McCaskill wrote. “Secretary [of State Hillary] Clinton, Secretary [of Transportation Ray] LaHood, and over 20 foreign governments are united in their opposition to EU ETS. The entire aviation industry, including airlines, operators and manufacturers, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and several labor unions are also supportive of our bipartisan bill.”

With a hold making passage by UC impossible, there is the possibility the Thune-McCaskill legislation gets tacked onto one of must-pass bills expected later this year. House Transportation Committee Chairman John Mica (R-Fla.) wrote a similar EU emissions bill that has already passed the House.

On the Huerta front, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) is behind the hold, adding that he will release it if President Barack Obama is reelected. If not, DeMint and other Republicans would want to see Mitt Romney make his own selection for the job. But it should be noted that Huerta and Romney know each other from their work together on the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. DeMint’s office has been quiet on if there has been any change in his stance over the recess.

In the interim, there is no great rush to get Huerta confirmed, as he is already acting administrator and can serve in that role until next year.